Site Mobile Navigation

South Sudan Steps Closer to Unraveling

As fighting has spread, 35,000 to 40,000 civilians, including from Juba, the capital, have taken refuge at other United Nations peacekeeping bases.Credit
Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The United Nations provided sobering details on Friday of an assault on a peacekeeping base in South Sudan that underscored the organization’s fragile ability to protect civilians in the country, where sectarian mayhem has escalated in recent days.

Two thousand armed youths of Nuer ethnicity overran the facility the previous day, killing at least 11 ethnic Dinka civilians seeking refuge and two Indian peacekeepers who had tried to protect them, the United Nations said.

The assault on the base in the town of Akobo in Jonglei State on Thursday was among a number of alarming developments that have increased the fear of an impending civil war in South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, where ethnic hatreds, initially obscured after independence from Sudan two years ago, have been reaggravated and inflamed.

Between 35,000 and 40,000 civilians have taken refuge in at least three other United Nations peacekeeping bases in the country, including two in the capital of Juba, United Nations officials said, and there were fears of an attack on a peacekeeping base in Bor, the capital of Jonglei State, where 14,000 civilians had sought sanctuary in a base surrounded by at least 2,000 armed youths.

“The situation, of course, is very, very unstable there,” Gérard Araud, the French ambassador to the United Nations and president of the Security Council, said after an emergency session of the Council, which issued a statement expressing “grave alarm” and strong condemnation of the fighting.

Four United Nations helicopters evacuated the remaining peacekeepers from the Akobo base on Friday, the organization said, as other countries joined the growing voices of concern and took action to evacuate their citizens, including China, which operates a number of petroleum projects there.

Photo

A man and his son inside a United Nations peacekeeping base on Thursday in Juba, South Sudan, the world’s youngest country.Credit
Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

“I deplore this unjustified and unwarranted attack on the United Nations Mission base in Akobo, killing peacekeepers that were here to protect civilians and serve the people of South Sudan,” Hilde F. Johnson, the top United Nations official in the country, said in a statement. It was distributed by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, the peacekeeping force known by its acronym, Unmiss, which has about 6,800 soldiers and 700 police officers.

The statement said that the Nuer attackers opened fire at the Dinka civilians in the Akobo base and that while members of the peacekeeping contingent sought to open negotiations, they, too, “came under sustained attack.”

The assailants overran the base, the statement said, and “seized weapons, ammunition and other supplies.” The peacekeeping contingent of about 40 Indian soldiers then coordinated with soldiers of South Sudan’s armed forces, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, and re-established control of the base within a few hours. The base remained under the army’s control, the account said.

Hundreds of people have been killed in South Sudan in the past week, mostly around Juba and in Jonglei State to the north, in an escalation of the crisis precipitated by President Salva Kiir’s claim on Monday of an attempted coup by soldiers loyal to his former vice president, Riek Machar, who was dismissed months ago. Mr. Kiir is a Dinka and Mr. Machar a Nuer, and the killings appear to be increasingly divided along those ethnic lines.

Farhan Haq, a spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said on Friday that there were no immediate plans to strengthen the Unmiss force.

Britain, which began evacuating its citizens on Thursday, said Friday that it had sent a second airplane to Juba to carry Britons to safety. “We strongly advise all British nationals in South Sudan to leave the country if they can do so safely,” the Foreign Office said. The United States offered similar advice to Americans and suspended operations at its embassy in Juba this week.

China, which operates oil fields near Juba, also moved Friday to protect its nationals. The China National Petroleum Corporation began what it called “the orderly evacuation of our workers,” Agence France-Presse reported.

Rick Gladstone reported from New York, and Alan Cowell from London.

A version of this article appears in print on December 21, 2013, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: South Sudan Steps Closer To Unraveling. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe